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April Fools' Day: the best (and worst) tech pranks of 2015

06:08

April 1, lest we forget, is April Fools' Day, and the day the PR industry bends over backwards trying to trick journalists into running jokey or just plain rubbish stories. Read on for the most offensive contenders sent to the Telegraph technology desk this year.

Play Pac-Man on Google Maps

No one loves April Fools' day quite as much as Google, and this year the tech giant has gone all out with a series of pranks. It has launched an April Fool's Day version of Google Maps that allows users to play the classic arcade game Pacman on real streets.

Google Map users can access the Pacman version by clicking on the icon in the bottom corner of the screen and then using their keyboard to play the game.

The game is accessible on desktop computers and on the Google Maps app and allows users to play the famous game around the world's most recognisable streets or your own neighbourhood.

At some famous locations, such as the area around the Taj Mahal and the Arc de Triomphe,, Google has added a Pacman marker that also launches the game because the areas appear perfectly matched to the original Pacman layout.

In a blog post explaining the game, Michelle Luo, product manager at Google, said: "With local place information and Street View, it’s easier than ever before to find where you’re going but there’s never been anything to let you know where not to go. With this update, we’ve added imagery of dangerous virtual beings, starting with Pinky, Blinky, Inky and Clyde.

"When navigating fruit-filled streets, determine at a glance which turns to pass to evade ghosts and get where you’re going safely. When you’re feeling a bit peckish, you can simply gobble up a few pac-dots or a cherry and keep on nommin'."

Play Pac-Man on your own street this April Fools' Day

#ChromeSelfieShould you boot up Google's web browser Chrome on your mobile today, you might be in for a bit of a shock. Another clever prank is #ChromeSelfie, which allows you to snap an unflattering selfie and share it in reaction to an open tab on Chrome.

com.googleIf you've ever wondered what Googling in a parallel universe would look like, wonder no more. Google has launched a backward version of its search portal,com.google. All results are flipped in a mirror image, making for disorientating reading.

Living in a parallel universe: com.google's results page

Smartbox by InboxYet another Google gag, Smartbox by Inbox presents a "better, smarter mailbox that fuses physical mail with everything you love about the electronic kind."

Amazon.com goes retroIn a stroke of genius, Amazon.com has gone retro by reverting its homepage to how it looked circa 1999. The page reverts to the current itteration after around 30 seconds, but it's a pleasant return to times gone by.

Amazon.com circa 1999: a simpler time

PlayStation FlowTaking wearable tech and virtual reality to a whole new level, PlayStation's witty April Fool combines gaming with actual swimming in what it calls "a watershed moment in wearable tech".

"When you get to an underwater section of a game like The Last of Us Remastered you can hit pause, head to your nearest pool, dive in and resume playing through PlayStation Flow," the company said. Four PlayStation flow sensors connected to your biceps and thighs track your swimming movements, and the PlayStation Flow Body Dryer is the perfect way to dry off afterward. Very good.

Domino’s Pizza's Domi-No-Driver Tapping into the current obsession with driverless vehicles, Domino's were swift to send out a press release boasting how their customers would soon have their pizzas delivered by the world's first autonomous delivery vehicle, capable of carrying "400 per cent more pizza thanks to 100 per cent less driver". Sure.

Once a customer has placed an order, their location will be tracked by the Domi-No-Driver for the entirety of its journey via GPS - at home or on the go, the Domino's team said. The on-board P.I. (Pizza Interface) system will then calculate the most efficient route of delivery, while its H.U.N.G.A.R. system (Hunger Detection And Ranging) will detect real time obstacles, ensuring maximum safety for road users.

The "Domi-No-Driver"

Learn dog barking as a language via GrouponDedicated dog walker, Hannah Howard, 30, from Bromley, Kent, learnt to speak dog after taking an online e-learning course from Groupon, helping her to 'truly understand' what her dog was saying.

Developed by the Pet Auditory Welfare Service, (PAWS), the course analysed over 2,000 different barks from 150 different breeds of dogs to interpret the length, cadence and pitch of both individual barks and ‘phrases’ to develop a dialect that humans could recreate in order to communicate with their dogs.

Microsoft's MS-DOS MobileMicrosoft have teased something many of us would actually want - a version ofMS-DOS for mobile. The new OS, designed especially for Lumias, allows you to run a number of already installed applications, while the sleuths amongst you will delight in uncovering a few extra special features – all through the medium of the much-loved C:/ prompt, according to the company.

“MS-DOS Mobile allows us to look proudly back, while at the same time moving us defiantly forwards,” said Tom Messett of the Microsoft Lumia marketing team. “It’s simple, effective productivity re-imagined through the medium of DOS. “

Lumias running MS-DOS

Uber for Tinder/Tinder for UberIn what we sincerely hope is an April Fools, we present to you Uber for TinderandTinder for Uber, and what is quite possibly the death of romance. Automatically request an Uber to go and meet up with your new love interest with the former, or "make a Tinder match with an Uber driver and he'll split the fare with you" with the latter. Charming.

Immediately summon an Uber to meet up with your new Tinder match...

...Or split the fare of an Uber with your new love match driver

Contactless gnomes from Barclaycard Fancy turning anything you own, such as your guitar or favourite gnome, into a contactless payment device by embedding a chip into it? Well you can't, because Barclaycard just made it up.

Pay for goods with a gnome or your guitar? Well you can't.

“Since we made wristbands, gloves and donkey rides contactless last year we’ve been inundated with requests from customers asking us to make all sorts of things into a way to pay," Katherine Whitton, chief marketing officer at Barclaycard allegedly said. "We want to give consumers the ability to pay in the way they want so, with innovation at the core of our business, we’ve developed purpose-built kiosks where they can turn anything into a contactless payment device."

Gnome-scanning: not the future

Fragrances from Allies Technology

This one's cleverer than most we received, but still a stretch of the imagination. "Over the years web developers have found new and better ways to serve audio and video content online. Now you can delight your website visitors' olfactory senses as well as their visual and auditory ones," claims Allies Technology.

The 'scents' available to download as CCS files before adding as classes to your site's HTML include petrol, gunpowder, sea air and wet dog, which the company hopes will be eventually inserted into the "AromaBase developed for the now defunct Google Nose." Nice try.